Instant Husband

“Most of the horses are out to pasture, but my mount is in the stall over here.”

Ann leaned over the end of the wooden stall. It contained a large brown horse who lifted his head to look at her. Bits of hay were sticking out of his velvety-looking lips, and he studied her with soft, brown eyes.

“What’s his name?”

“Joe.”

“He’s got kind eyes.” Ann tentatively petted him.

So does she, Nick thought as he watched the hazel hue of her eyes deepen when Joe nickered in pleasure at her caress. Nick’s eyes were drawn to the stroking movement of Ann’s fingers as they slowly moved over Joe’s neck. What would it be like to have her touch him like that? The unexpected thought popped into his mind. To have her hands stroking over his bare chest? He tensed as a wave of longing slammed through him.

“I always wanted to have a horse,” Ann confided. “Ever since I was about seven and read Black Beauty. ”

Nick used patting Joe as an excuse to move closer to her. A tantalizing whiff of the perfume she was wearing teased his nostrils, and he fought the impulse to put his arms around her. To pull her up against him. To bury his face against her smooth skin and deeply breathe in the heady fragrance.

“There’s no reason you can’t learn to ride.” His voice was husky with the longings coloring his thoughts. “Joe won’t mind.”

Nick opened the door of the stall, slipped inside and saddled Joe with fingers that felt clumsy. He just hoped that Ann didn’t notice. A quick glance at her both reassured and annoyed him. She was concentrating on the horse, not him.

When he finally got the saddle adjusted, he led Joe out into the open barnyard.

Ann hurried after him, pausing uncertainly when she reached his side. This close, Joe seemed to be much bigger than he had been in the barn. She shifted from one foot to the other. Didn’t they have anything on this ranch that came in a small size?

“Up you go,” Nick ordered.

Ann looked from the ground to the stirrup to the saddle, and then back down at her feet. “How?” she finally asked.

“Put your left foot in the stirrup, grab hold of the saddle and pull yourself up.”

Ann took a deep breath and followed his directions. It didn’t turn out to be that easy. She wound up half on and half off, hanging on to the pommel of the saddle for dear life.

“Pull yourself up,” Nick said.

Ann gritted her teeth in frustration, embarrassed at seeming so inept. “If I could do that, I wouldn’t be dangling here,” she said tightly.

To her shock, Nick put his hands on her hips and gave her a shove. Ann awkwardly scrambled up into the saddle. Her flesh seemed to burn where he’d touched her, and she could still feel the imprint of his hard fingers. She wiggled slightly, trying to dispel the sensation, and forced herself to focus on the riding lesson.

“Now what?” Her voice came out high and breathless sounding.

“Squeeze your legs together and Joe will move.”

Ann obediently tightened her legs, and Joe took off at a brisk walk. Ann jerked backward, yanking on the reins. Joe came to a sudden stop, and she pitched forward against his neck.

“This isn’t as easy as it looks on television,” she muttered.

“Perhaps I can help until you get your balance.” Before she realized what he intended to do, Nick swung up behind her with a lithe grace that she envied. Ann gulped as he reached around her and took the reins. She could feel the muscles of his forearms pushing into her rib cage, and he was pressed against her from hip to shoulder. His body felt hot, stiflingly hot, and the heat was beginning to affect her, loosening her muscles and making them soft and pliable. She licked her lips, trying to regain control. She felt as if she were getting a lesson in frustration, not riding.

“Try to relax and move with the horse’s gait.” Nick’s breath warmed the skin on her neck, sending a cascade of shivers over her.

Relax! Ann thought incredulously. She was wound tightly enough to break, and he wanted her to relax!

Nick purposefully took a deep breath, forcing his chest closer to her. His gut clenched in reaction, and he could feel his body hardening. He wanted to nuzzle the soft white skin beneath her ear. To nibble her lips. To press his own to them and force them apart.

He squarely faced the fact that he wanted to go to bed with her. No, not wanted. That was a take-it-or-leave-it feeling. This was stronger than that. Much stronger. He craved sex with her.

Why shouldn’t he? He was married to her. Sex was part of marriage, he rationalized. So why not indulge his senses?

But what had happened the last time he’d lost his head over a woman? The chilling thought intruded. He’d been sucked into a disastrous situation that had ended in a very acrimonious divorce.

Ann wiggled slightly, and he lost his train of thought at the feel of her soft behind pressing into his groin. He couldn’t stand this! It had been so long since he’d had a woman. Over ten years—and until Ann had arrived, the lack had been no more than a minor inconvenience. But now…

This time would be different, he tried to convince himself. This time he wasn’t wallowing in overheated hormones and calling it love. This time he was in control of both his emotions and the situation and he would remain in control. All he had to do was make sure that he maintained an emotional distance from her. He swallowed as she lurched backward, hitting his chest. But not a physical distance. In fact, he wanted nothing so much as to eliminate all physical distance as soon as possible.

But how? It was a disquieting question. How did he bring up the subject of going to bed with her? He walked Joe around the barnyard in a wide circle while he pondered the problem, but he couldn’t think of a single graceful way of asking her to go to bed with him without first making a lot of emotional promises that he had no intention of keeping.

Joe stopped of his own accord as they approached the open barn door. Nick slowly swung out of the saddle and looked back up at Ann. Her eyes were gleaming with pleasure, and her soft lips were curved in a triumphant smile at her ride. An unexpected feeling of tenderness engulfed him, and he opened his mouth, intending to say something sophisticated and witty. To his horror, what emerged was neither.

“I have no objections to having sex with you,” he said, and then froze in stunned disbelief as he heard his bald words echo through the air.

Three (#ulink_5bd69f3d-35d3-5aac-901c-2c75f56e33fe)

No objections to having sex with her! The destructive words sliced through Ann’s mind, lacerating her already battered self-confidence. Not even the sop of telling her that he found her attractive and wouldn’t object to getting to know her better. Just a bald “I wouldn’t mind having sex with you.” As if she were a convenience to be used to alleviate his needs with no acknowledgment that she might have feelings and needs of her own.

Was that all she was ever to be to the men in her life? Ann felt chill fingers of despair wrap themselves around her heart. When they eased, hopelessness rushed in to fill the void. She clenched her teeth against an overwhelming urge to burst into tears, refusing to let Nick see just how damaging she had found his words.

Her frantic gaze swung around the barren barnyard. She had to escape. To find a hiding place where she could painfully piece together the tattered remnants of her composure. Acting on instinct, she swung her leg over the horse and half fell, half jumped out of the saddle, only to wind up sprawled on the ground underneath Joe.

Ann bit her lip against the hysterical laughter bubbling up in her throat. The final straw would be if Joe were to step on her.

“That’s not the way to get off a horse.” Nick grabbed her beneath her armpits and hauled her to her feet with effortless ease. “You’ll hurt yourself,” he warned.

He was worried she’d hurt herself? Ann thought incredulously. When he’d already delivered a knockout blow to her fragile sense of worth as a woman? At least broken bones and bruises healed. She wasn’t sure that her emotions would ever feel whole again.

“Um, about what I said…What I meant was that I wouldn’t…I mean…we are married and…”

Nick’s garbled words slowly filtered through the miasma of unhappiness that surrounded her, and Ann forced herself to look at him. The muscles along his jaw were corded and there was a dull red flush underlying his deep tan. As if…he were embarrassed?

The unexpected idea shook Ann free from her own feelings long enough to consider his. Could his offer be the result of embarrassment at the necessity of articulating his emotional needs, rather than a lack of respect or interest in her as a person? It was possible, she conceded. She didn’t know him well enough to be able to say.

All Maggie had told her about Nick were bare facts. Facts about his emotionally starved childhood, facts about his disastrous first marriage, facts about his problems in dealing with the unexpected arrival of his daughter. What Maggie hadn’t been able to tell her was how those facts had shaped him emotionally. How they had shaped his thought processes. She would have to figure that out for herself.

Which left her where? Ann tried to think. Her brand-new husband had suggested that he wouldn’t be averse to having sex with her. She didn’t like the fact that he was thinking in terms of sex while she thought in terms of making love, but maybe that was the way men thought.

A discouraged sigh escaped her. What she didn’t know about men in general and this man in particular would fill a book.

“But, of course, if you don’t…” Nick responded to what he thought was the reason for her sigh. “I mean I can understand that you might not…”

Ann found his disjointed words somehow comforting. He didn’t appear to be any more sure of himself than she was. In fact, if anything, he seemed to be virtually inarticulate when it came to expressing his emotions.